


Gods' Hand

by dinobot_47



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Cover Art, F/M, Fade to Black, Scaly Tales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-06-01
Updated: 1999-06-01
Packaged: 2018-03-22 21:36:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3744427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinobot_47/pseuds/dinobot_47
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damar asks for Ezri's help in finding Dukat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the 4th issue of the Scaly Tales online zine, June/July 1999. (No longer online.)

Lined up on Ezri's coffee table were a pot of coffee, a cup of raktajino, a cup of red leaf tea and an oversized mug full of boiling spice tea. Ezri was sitting on her couch, staring absently at the collection of beverages, late night drinks favored by Dax's previous hosts.

"I don't like any of them," she said suddenly. "The only reason I ever drank coffee at the Academy was because I needed a stimulant to keep me awake for cram sessions. Raktajino tastes disgusting, red leaf tea gives me indigestion, and spice tea is just...gross."

_(If you don't like them, then why did you request them from the replicator?)_ Curzon inquired.

Ezri shook her head and sighed. "I didn't order these. Torias asked for the coffee, you and Jadzia wanted the raktajino...Tobin used to drink red leaf tea when he was on Vulcan and needed to concentrate, and Lela..." Ezri let out a sharp laugh, "...used to drink so much spice tea they found it in her blood stream carrying oxygen to her cells."

_(I resent that remark,)_ Lela said.

"Look, it's late, I'm tired, and I want to go to bed. If you're thirsty, try to wait 'til morning."

Affirmatives and confirmations echoed within her skull before Jadzia and Audrid got into an argument whether or not a symbiont memory engram actually felt thirst.

Ezri stood, and began to work kinks from her back before she caught herself and stopped. It was a leftover habit of Curzon's; he had had frequent back problems, especially in his later years.

She turned off the lights in the living room and entered her bathroom by way of her bedroom, already anticipating a long soak in a tub full of hot water...and stopped in her tracks. "I don't want a bath!"

_(But you need one, dear,)_ Lela said in her mother-hen voice. _(You spent three hours in Quark's, and you smell like it. For our sakes...if not for us, then for your colleagues, who will have to put up with your...odor tomorrow.)_

She exhaled noisily. " _Fine!_ "

Ezri entered the bathroom, clomping noisily on the floor. She shook off her boots and stripped of her uniform and underwear, dumping it all into a heap on the floor. Sitting on the edge of the tub, she punched in her preferences and sat back to watch the tub fill up.

Spurred on by a Torias-driven impulse, she picked up a bottle of scented oil and poured a dollop of it into the near-boiling water. She closed her eyes and let out a contented sigh. It had been _ages_ since she went out of her way to enjoy herself like this...If her memory served correctly, the last time was, oh, a week before the joining.

She stiffened; and the voices went silent.

For a long moment, the only sounds in the room were her breathing, and the gentle hiss of the water filling the bathtub.

_(See, Ezri,)_ Lela said, her voice strained with false enthusiasm, _(I know you would enjoy this.)_

_(The oil was a brilliant idea,)_ Jadzia continued, grasping at invisible straws for a subject, any subject, other than Ezri's joining to turn the conversation towards.

"It wasn't mine," Ezri replied numbly. "It's an old habit of Torias'. Thank him instead."

_(Well, I wasn't the one who dumped it into the tub, Ezri, you were. It's proof you're beginning to integrate the symbiont's ...habits into your own.)_

"Great," she muttered, as she slipped into the now-full tub.

_(It is, actually,)_ Audrid said. _(It's a good sign. It means that your personality and the symbiont's are, well, merging.)_

"I don't want to merge with the symbiont."

_(Well, it's a good sign for the symbiont, then,)_ Torias shot back. _(You're a part of Dax, and it's time you learnt to...)_

_(Torias!)_ Audrid bellowed and Ezri tensed slightly at the force of the yell. _(Ezri does not have to 'learn' anything, nor does she have anything to be...grateful for. She is already part of Dax, and has been since the day she joined. The only reason I am content with her behavior is because it means we are becoming part of **her**.)_

_(That should have happened when she joined. It happened to **all** of us. Hell, even **Verad** integrated the symbiont's personality into his own, and he stole us from Jadzia.)_

Audrid sighed. _(I know that, Joran. I **was** head of the Symbiosis commission. I earned my first doctorate on the blended personalities. The reason Ezri hasn't integrated us into her personality is because she didn't **want** to be joined. Her integration will be much more gradual, and to make things as smooth as possible, the last thing you should do is draw attention to it. It makes Ezri much more self-conscious, and she will probably spend the next **week** taking careful note of all her personal quirks.)_

"Don't _I_ have a say in this?" Ezri asked. "It is my life we're talking about here."

_(Very well. What **do** you have to say about all this?)_

"One. Yes, it does bother me when you all call attention to my quirks, but it doesn't make me spend the next week taking careful note of all of them.

"Two. Could we please add this to the list of taboo topics and let me take my bath?"

A half-hearted affirmative echoed from the chorus' voices. Ezri groaned and slid down into the water, momentarily submerging her head below the surface, wetting her hair, and acclimatizing herself to the heat.

She straightened, letting her head emerge above the surface. _Bliss._

* * *

Just beyond the station' sensor perimeter, a small Cardassian freighter with Dominion registration lay in wait, cloaked to prevent ships passing by from detecting it.

It waited, its sensors active, for DS9 to drop its shields.

* * *

Ezri stretched out her legs and her toes poked above the water. "Computer, play... uhm... t'Rehu's Ascension."

She could feel Audrid smile.

* * *

A small yatch circled the station, transmitting a general request for a docking permit. Ops tight-beamed an affirmative, and DS9 dropped her shields.

The Cardassian freighter's transporters went into action, and beamed their payload into the Habitat ring.

Into the living room of a junior officer's quarters, to be precise.

* * *

_(Ezri?)_

"Yes, Tobin?"

_(Have you ever heard of Iloja of Prim?)_

"Umm...I've heard the name before...I think I had to write a paper on him in a Classical Lit course at the Academy. He's a Cardassian poet, right?"

_(Yes.)_

"I'll bite, Tobin. Why are you asking me?"

_(I... I just thought you might like to know. He was the one who introduced me to Romulan music.)_

"That's cool... But isn't t'Rehu's Ascension a _Vulcan_ piece?"

_(Ezri!)_ Curzon scolded. _(Did they teach you nothing at the Academy? T'Rehu was the first - and only - ruling queen of Romulus.)_

"You know what? I'll ask the _Romulans_ who she is. Tomorrow," and she stood up, directing the computer to empty the tub as she stepped out onto the floor.

She scooped up her uniform and boots and walked to her bedroom, stifling a yawn. There, she collapsed on her bed, dropping her clothes on the floor by the wall.

Ezri rubbed at her eyes and yawned again, smiling up at the ceiling. A good day. A great day, really. No new patients, no complications with her current patients - she had even managed to get Garak to agree to see her once a month, which, in itself, was a great victory - and she had gotten two of her more... extreme patients transferred to a Federation psychiatric hospital. More importantly, _no_ arguments with Dax. The voices had agreed with her, or kept silent, and for that, she was truly grateful.

She looked down at her belly, and began to massage the scar that ran the length of her abdomen, where the surgeons had opened her up and slid in a sessile worm that had changed her life.

A worm that was being uncharacteristically silent...

"Dax?" she started, a slight, mocking tone to her voice.

_(Shhh!)_ The symbiont - all it's voices combined into one - replied.

Ezri shot bolt upright, her heart hammering in her chest.

_(We...we think there's someone in your living room,)_ it continued. _(Say nothing!)_

She nodded once, and listened, straining her ears to pick up any and every sound in her quarters.

_Who do you think it is?_ She thought

The floor creaked in the living room, and Ezri's pulse quickened.

_(The footfalls are heavy. We think it's male.)_

"Worf?" she called out, her voice quavering. It was a silly hope, really. He was speaking to her now, something that pleased all of them, since Jadzia's love for the Klingon was so strong that it transcended the boundaries of the host personalities, but he wouldn't come into her quarters without permission.

"Who...who's there?"

The creaking approached the bedroom, and a figure walked in as the door slid open. It was still dark, and all she could see was his silhouette, framed by the light that streamed in her windows.

"Lights!" She called out.

She recognized the intruder. He was Cardassian, nearing middle age, and someone whose face had become familiar to nearly all citizens of the Alpha Quadrant over the past year.

Legate Damar of the Cardassian Empire was standing in her bedroom. He sucked in a deep breath and seemed to be looking at anything but her.

_What's wrong with him?_

_(He's a Cardassian,)_ Curzon sighed.

_And... What does that have to do with anything? Why won't he look at me?_

_(They have severe nudity taboos, or at least Damar's people do. Put on some clothes before you give the man an apoplexy.)_

She pulled up a sheet, and knotted it at the shoulder, like a toga. Damar's gaze flashed up and down her body, appraising it. The intensity he focused upon her reminded Ezri - or was it Emony? - of the evaluation committee when she was an initiate.

_But **I** was never an initiate._

The memory was there, nevertheless, and that combined with the utter strangeness of the situation made her feel light-headed. She pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. Bright spots appeared against her eyelids.

She blinked once, to clear her vision, and focused on Damar. He was watching her, a concerned look on his face.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"I... yeah... yeah, I'm fine. Just a little startled, that's all. Not every one appears in my quarters unannounced. How did you get in?" she asked suddenly.

"Transporter."

She shrugged. "It's not every day that someone _beams_ into my quarters unannounced, then. But then, most people don't beam into my quarters, period. I'm more used to them using the door... I talk too much, don't I? Benjamin's been dropping broad hints, but he's never really said it out loud... Sorry, sorry."

He waved it off. "It's nothing."

_(Ezri. He's a Cardassian. He comes from a species enamored with the sound of their own voices,)_ Curzon added

She sat up straighter, and leaned forward, sticking out her hand. "I'm Ezri. Ezri Dax."

He stared at her for a long moment before reluctantly taking her hand in his own and shaking it limply. "I know. I'm Damar."

"I know that too," she replied with a smile. 

_(You shouldn't have done that,)_ Joran interjected with a sing-songy tone.

_What **now**?_

_(Hands are a major erogenous zone in Cardassians. Take a look. You probably gave him a... )_

Joran!

"What are you doing here?" she continued, ignoring Joran's obscene comments.

"I... " he took a deep breath, and looked down. "I need your help. I probably have no right to ask you this, considering what happened last time you met a Cardassian," he continued, the words tumbling out of his mouth, "but you were the only one I could think of. You _were_ , after all, the last person to see him..."

She lifted her hand. "Excuse me? But who are we talking about?"

He let out a bitter laugh. "Dukat. I want you to help me find Dukat."

* * *

Damar drummed his fingers on the edge of the flight console as he watched Cardassia recede through the viewscreen. 

Not more than two hours ago, Weyoun, in an attempt to enforce his authority and ensure public obedience towards the Dominion's iron-fisted rule, had ordered the public execution of a group of two dozen adolescents who had organized a non-violent sit-in at one of the newly erected government facilities. Damar had spent nearly an hour threatening, pleading, and finally begging the Vorta to spare their lives. Weyoun had agreed, on one condition. 

Damar had to bring Dukat back to Cardassia to be judged in a 'fair' Dominion trial.

"He will suffer punishment for his betrayal," Weyoun had hissed. "He will be used as a deterrent for all who might attempt to turn on the Dominion." And on those last words, the Vorta had glared at Damar, almost as a warning.

Damar laughed bitterly. _As if I had the time to plot a rebellion, what with trying to wage a war with the Federation, keep my political opponents from ousting me, and making sure the Dominion isn't trying to kill me. Brilliant, Weyoun. You've figured out my secret plan._

Cardassia had shrunk to a small, tight dot on his viewscreen, and he tapped a sensitive area on his console that sent the old freight hauler to warp, and then another which shifted the view to what lay before him. The black of space was freckled by tiny multihued spots of light that, due to the distortions of the subspace field, were stretched into rainbow filaments that streaked out of view.

His destination was a little over five light-years from Cardassia, and at his current speed, it would take him a little less that a day to get there.

_Weyoun enforced his authority,_ Damar thought grimly. _It's obvious now which one of us truly rules. And he will never let me forget it._

This...farce was a true test of his loyalties, for Weyoun knew - and Damar knew that the Vorta knew - that if Damar was willing and able to turn on his former commander and but for a few months, his once-friend, then there was nothing, _nothing_ he wouldn't do in the name of Cardassia and their victory over the entire Alpha Quadrant.

A victory that, in Damar's war-weary eyes, already seemed to be receding further and further into the future, and further and further from the Dominion's grasping fingers.

They would lose, and they would die.

Oh, not the Dominion, for the Dominion, as Damar was beginning to realize, would never die, nor did they suffer defeat, only setbacks. As the Gamma Quadrant proved, they always got what they wanted.

No, in the end, the loser would be Cardassia and her people. Innocent and guilty alike will be slaughtered by the Federation forces, demoralized by defeat and hungry for vengeance upon his people. 

_But if we are to die, let us go down with what little honor we have left, instead of scurrying in the dark like the Federation._

Realization struck and he laughed at the irony. _**I** am scurrying about in the dark, just like them! Oh, Dax, if anyone would appreciate the... humor behind this, it would be you._

Did she hate him, he wondered. Dukat did kill her last host, and Damar believed that she knew he was responsible for Dukat's insanity. And, thus, her death.

But Dukat was surely not the only subject of Dax's wrath. As Damar had continued the war after Dukat was captured, Ezri might even believe _he_ was responsible for Dukat's attack on the station.

_And that couldn't be any further from the truth..._

All Damar had to do was close his eyes, and the surreal scene repeated itself: He and Weyoun engaged in some tedious war-related argument when a guard had burst through the door, and began to babble nervously. And then Dukat, carrying some sort of travel sack.

The broken idol...

The flash of light...

The chill that ran up Damar's spine to nestle permanently in his mind...

And then, days later, the report came in that the Trill was dead and Dukat was missing. Damar had mourned for them both, because on that day, he had lost two of an increasingly shrinking number of people he had loved. And who had loved him back.

He had sat there, on the bridge of the Ghriah, his mind reliving those days and others that haunted him still, his resolve firm, until his ship came into range of DS9.

* * *

Ezri sank into her bed, horror and fear mingling in her gut. Dukat... who murdered her, who murdered _Jadzia_ and put her in this predicament. She swallowed once and licked her lips, but the sickly sweet taste mounting in her gullet was still there.

"Du... Du-Dukat?" she asked, feebly, her voice weak with fear.

"Dukat," Damar affirmed. "Former prefect of Bajor, former Supreme Commander of the Cardassian Empire, and the man who killed you. The one and only."

"Whu... Why?"

He took a deep breath. "Because, out of all the possibilities, you are the least likely to turn on me and betray me to Dukat. You are the least likely to let him escape. You, out of all the people I could have chosen, are the least...insane choice. I knew Jadzia. She was an honourable woman and I trusted her. I hope that, out of all the qualities that were passed on to you when you received Dax, her sense of honour was one of them." He shook his head. "Asking anyone, from my...'colleagues' on Cardassia to even Kira or Weyoun, would have meant suicide."

Ezri moaned and buried her face in her hands. "First Joined. First Joined, First Joined. Help me." She looked up at Damar. "You can't be serious. You cannot be." Softly, inside her mind, Jadzia began to whisper 'yes, yes'. She pulled her knees up to her chest and pressed them in as tightly as possible. "This is a joke," she muttered, "a great joke, and I bet Julian is behind it. He's into morbid stuff these days."

Damar sat down on the bed beside her. "It's no joke, I'm afraid. I'm very serious."

She turned, and looked up at him. "I... I know. Jadzia says you don't have much of a sense of humor."

His mouth twisted into a sneer. "Jadzia... is right. I don't."

She let out a weak laugh and he stroked her shoulder in comfort. After a long moment, she looked up. "Al... alright; I'll help."

* * *

She smiled at him as she adjusted her uniform, and wipe at her eyes. "So," she began, "what are we using as transportation?"

"I have a ship just outside sensor range."

He tapped at the com unit on his wrist. "Damar to Ghriah. Two to transport."

She felt the familiar sensation of a transporter beam envelop her, and then materialized on Damar's ship, which, at first glance, appeared to be a rather old Cardassian freighter.

"The bridge is this way. Follow me"

They walked down a few corridors before emerging in a standard Cardassian bridge; a raised captain's seat surrounded by consoles, and at the head of the bridge was an eye-shaped viewscreen. She knew the layout, as Curzon had spent some time on a ship like this one during his youth.

"Memories," she muttered under her breath.

Damar, bent over the helm, shot her a slightly startled look. She shook her head, and he turned back to what he had been doing.

"Where are we going?" she asked suddenly.

His expression hardened, and he became all business. "I think I know where Dukat has gone to," he said. "Have you ever heard of Empok Nor?"

She nodded as one of Jadzia's memories unfolded. "Yes... It was abandoned a few years ago, when the system it was in became tactically useless. And it's been empty ever since."

"Not so empty recently, I'm afraid," he said. "Ever since Dukat... killed... you, there's been an increase - a serious one - of the amount of energy that it puts out. And they have begun sending and receiving tight-beam signals to and from Bajor."

"The Dominion has known about this and done _nothing_?!"

"There's a war going on, Dax, and as you said, the Trevas system has become tactically useless. We don't have the resources to waste on something like this."

"She sucked in her breath. "The Trevas system, then. Onwards to Empok Nor."

* * *

Ezri sat on the floor of the bridge, scrolling absently through a document on a padd, a memory from the symbiont tickling the back of her mind.

"Damar?" she said suddenly, "what, exactly, did Empok Nor _do_ before it was abandoned?"

"Eh... Oh, it was a research station."

"Politicalese for spy-eye?"

"During the war, yes, but not before. Its initial purpose was to analyze the composition of the nebula."

"Nebula?" The almost-memory was stronger now, something so obvious she might miss it.

"Why yes. The Trevas system isn't really a 'system' after all, but the remnants of an ancient nebula coalescing into star system. Its discovery shed a great deal of light on to the formation of planets and the like."

_(Spoken like a true science officer,)_ Jadzia said proudly

_**He** was a science officer?_

_(Yup. He transferred into command a year or two before he met Dukat.)_

_He doesn't look it..._

_(He is handsome, isn't he?)_

_Ye - I mean, Jadzia!_

Jadzia giggled.

And the memory was suddenly unfurled.

"Damar, I have an idea. Have you ever heard of Alolen Saadara and her research into stellar formation?"

He nodded once, his confusion written plainly across his face.

"D'you remember how she got her data?"

His eyes widened in understanding.

* * *

The silver nebula hung against the backdrop of space like a jewel, its timelessness almost palpable. The intense amount of radiation put out by the gas globule served as an effective cloak of their presence. Even if they circled around the starseed at full impulse with every system at full power, the Ghriah's energy output would look like nothing more than a simple - and perfectly normal - minor fluctuation to whomever was scanning the star.

"Clever, Curzon," Ezri whispered under her breath.

_(It's nothing,)_ he said, with barely a hint of modesty. _(I figured that if it worked against the Klingons, it would certainly work against a thirty-year-old Cardassian research station.)_

_(You'd best not say that aloud,)_ Lela added, rather sardonically. _(Cardassians don't take kindly to being compared to Klingons, even if it's something as simple as their technology.)_

_(This one'd toss you out an airlock,)_ Jadzia added. _(Damar **hates** Klingons.)_

Curzon tsk'ed, and had he been alive, he would have shook his head. _(Poor deprived man.)_

_(But he doesn't see it that way,)_ Jadzia said.

_(But he's a Cardassian... )_ Tobin replied _(... and they're awfully stubborn... )_

_(Like Iloja?)_

_(Er... ah... um... well... )_ Tobin said, flustered. _(I wouldn't put it that way... )_

_(Oh, stop teasing him, Curzon,)_ Jadzia said in a mock-scolding tone.

_(I am not teasing,)_ Curzon replied, sounding hurt.

Ezri smiled, and let their minor argument join the soft background noises. Damar was sitting in the command chair, hunched over a padd and scowling furiously.

She stepped up beside him and glanced at the padd, curious as to what was bothering him, but it's contents were in Kardasi, and she could only a few words - not enough to decipher anything more complicated than the station's controls. And anyway, he was scanning it to fast for Tobin to read it - he was the only one of Dax's former hosts who was fluent in Kardasi. "What is it?" she asked, impatient after a few moments of waiting.

Damar's features tightened into a sneer. "I... I'm not sure." He tapped at the padd's screen and the closed the document he had been reading. "It could be nothing, but I'm not willing to take that chance."

He sighed, a long, low, ragged sound, and turned to Ezri, his features softening. She was struck at how he changed, how he almost became handsome. "Since we've gotten her, eight people have beamed from the station to Bajor, and three of them have returned within the last hour. I only knew what Dukat was up to - or even if he's there." He looked at her sharply, eyes narrowing. "Are you sure they can't detect us?"

Ezri nodded once, and swallowed, anxiety and nervousness bubbling in her gust.

_(If it makes you feel any better, he's just as scared as you are,)_ Curzon said quietly. _(But he's just hiding it better.)_

_(And it's not **you** he's afraid of,)_ Audrid added. _(I think it's Dukat he fears.)_

_(I don't blame him,)_ Jadzia said bitterly. _(He's **insane**.)_

_(We know, Jadzia, we know,)_ Audrid soothed.

_(She's right,)_ interjected Emony. _(But it's not the madness per se Damar is afraid of, it's the unpredictability that's really worrying him.)_

_Yeah..._ Ezri thought. _The old Dukat he knew; this one he doesn't. Like you said, he's become unpredictable._

_(It could be... )_ Torias said, _(it could **be** that's why he brought **you** along. Dukat doesn't know you. You're **Damar's** wild card.)_

"I don't like the sound of that... " Ezri said.

Damar's head shot up. "What?"

"I... It's just... I mean... What if they're evacuating? What if we were wrong about their sensor capabilities and they are registering us. What... what if the people there have decided to run... "

"Dukat wouldn't run," Damar snapped.

"What if Dukat isn't there?"

"I _know_ he's there!" he shouted.

Ezri stumbled a step back and stared at him, wide-eyed. "H-how... how d'you know?"

Damar slammed his fist into the armrest and stood. "He told me," Damar whispered, so faintly Ezri had to strain her ears to hear him. "He sent me a message, months ago, that he had found a purpose, a cause, and he was starting a community on Empok Nor... He asked me to join him!"

And, suddenly, it all made sense.

Ezri knew then and there that Damar hadn't brought her along to be his wild card, but to be his insurance, his protection to make sure he wasn't swayed to Dukat's side.

_(I bet,)_ Lela said, _(I just bet that it's only for your age. He probably figured that since you're - we're - over three hundred years old, we would be enough of a mature influence to ground his behaviour... )_

_Too bad he doesn't know any better,_ Ezri thought bitterly.

_(I think it's sad,)_ Emony said wistfully. _(That poor, sweet man... )_

_(I think he's pathetic,)_ Joran grumbled.

Ezri froze. _No. No, he's not. If he were 'pathetic', he would have run to join Dukat when the offer was made. He didn't. He only came when he had no choice: Weyoun and those poor kids. And he was smart enough to bring me along, knowing I'll help him **and** scare Dukat. That's not the behavior of a 'pathetic' man._

_(That's what I meant,)_ Emony interjected. _(It's 'make you want to cry' sad.)_

Ezri wiped at her eyes and looked at Damar. He had moved from the command chair to a console at the far end of the bridge.

_(At least he knows his limits. Most would have charged off half-cocked and damn the consequences. This one **knows** that if he does that, Dukat'll sway him and he'll be lost.)_

"He's being selfish, Emony," Ezri muttered under her breath.

_(True, but most people are.)_

_**I'm** not,_ Ezri shot back.

There was an awkward silence. None of the chorus truly wanted to dwell on Ezri's self-sacrifice. Her loss was still fresh, and the wound barely healed over; every time the subject was brought up, she would get upset and rant at near-hysteria about the injustice of it all... or she would become sullen and remote, unwillingly severing the symbiont's link with the outside world.

_(We know **you** are,)_ Curzon said, _(but most people think of their own needs before those of others - thus making you an exception to the rule.)_

_Why **me** , then? Doesn't he have his own mature, unselfish friends? Couldn't he have gotten someone else?_

_(He explained it earlier,)_ Audrid said simply.

"What?" Ezri spat.

Damar's head shot up. "What 'what'?"

Flustered, she began to improvise. "I... ah... thought you said something. Guess I'm hearing things."

He nodded slowly, his hooded eyes belying his scepticism.

_(Why don't you just say you were arguing with us?)_ Lela said, her voice thin and sharp.

_(Oh, **that's** brilliant,)_ Joran shot back. _(Just what he wants to know: the person he's entrusting to keep him from succumbing to Dukat's... influences hears voices in her **head**.)_

Audrid sighed loudly. _(But for a Trill, that's **normal**.)_

_(What are you willing to wager he doesn't **know** that? Why, it was only a few years ago that the Symbiosis Commission gave basic, biological information about the symbiont and the joining process to off-worlders. Before that, no one even knew we sliced open our best and our brightest to put a worm in them... )_ He paused for a moment, as if to gather his thoughts, _(... and if memory serves correctly, Aud, it was yours the deciding vote that **banned** outsiders from even knowing about the joining. )_

_(We changed our policies,)_ she said tersely, _(the fiasco with Odan convinced the Commission to revise that ban and allow aliens to understand the basics of joining... )_

_(My point **was** ,)_ Joran interrupted, _(was that considering the information has only been available for a scant few years, what makes you think **Damar** has read it?)_

To that, Audrid was silent.

"Damar?" Ezri said. He glanced up, his brow furrowed in concentration.

_(Oh, no... you wouldn't... )_

_Be quiet!_ She thought sharply.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"Ah, where's the mess hall?"

A sigh of relief rose up from half the chorus, and the other half simply groaned in protest.

"Two levels down. It's the only thing on the deck aside from the sickbay. You won't miss it."

She flashed him a cheery smile as thanks and left the bridge. A nearby turbolift took her down to deck 3. She looked around and found her way easily; Damar's directions had been right on.

One glance around the mess hall and Ezri nearly had to stifle a laugh. "Oh, poor Damar," she said, chortling. "This... is too funny," and she laughed. "They do have more in common than anyone thought."... For the mess hall of the Ghriah bore an eerie resemblance to the one on the Rotarran.

"When was the last time I was ion that ugly ship?" Ezri said, cheerfully

_(Never,)_ Joran replied, just as pleasantly. _( **You** were never **on** the Rotarran; Jadzia was._

_(But, oh, Audrid, aren't you **happy**? She's making our memories hers! Our dear little Ezri is developing False Memory syndrome.)_

_( **Silence**!)_ Audrid snarled, her voice cold and sharp. _(Do not mock what you don't understand - or respect. You yourself rejoiced mightily when **you** began to remember our experiences as your own... )_

_(Yes,)_ Joran said cheekily. _(But I wanted to be joined with Dax. **Ezri** didn't. She's been preventing our personalities from properly melding together. She's been doing all she could to pretend the joining **never** happened. And now that our memories are appearing as her own, it means she's either faltering - which I can't believe - or that she's going **mad**!)_

"I am not insane," Ezri said as she stepped up to the bank of replicators set into the back wall.

_(Yeah, she's a counselor. They're not allowed to be crazy.)_

"Thank you, Curzon. A cup of coffee and a Thyfferan pastry," she added to the machine.

_(Do you like Damar?)_ Jadzia said, out of the blue.

"Jadzia. You're acting strange. Again."

_(But... you **do** think he's handsome?)_ she pressed on.

"Where is this coming from?" Ezri snapped, helplessly waving her pastry and coffee in the air.

_(I just thought the two of you would be a good match, that's all.)_

"Why is it whenever a new man you always try to get me into bed with him? In case you might not have noticed, I don't need a man to make me happy."

_(Ezri's right,)_ Curzon affirmed. _(Let's set her up with Colonel Kira, then.)_

Ezri groaned as she sat, slamming her plate and coffee on the table. Liquid sloshed out of the cup on to the tabletop and on to her pastry

"I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not interested in Kira. She's a good friend, but I don't want it to go any further than that."

_(Why don't you like her, then?)_

"I do like her, Curzon, I just don't like her that way."

_(Why not?)_

"Curzon, just because you want to sleep with her doesn't mean I want to."

He grunted and went silent. After a few moments, the silence spread to the others. Ezri took the opportunity to eat her pastry, soggy and coffee stained as it was. When she finished, Audrid spoke up:

_(Answer his question. Why aren't you interested in Kira?)_

"Just because you live in my head doesn't mean you're privy to every detail about my - non-existent - sex life."

_(Yes, it does.)_

Ezri sighed loudly. "Fine. You want the truth? I think she's too, well... masculine."

_(WHAT?!)_ Half the chorus bellowed

Lela, the first to regain her composure, began to sputter. _(Masculine?! Wha-what makes you think **Kira** is **masculine**?)_

"Well, you know, there's her whole take-charge attitude, she has no figure... and the hair... "

_(Oh, you should talk,)_ Torias snapped.

"I know I shouldn't complain about that, but... well, I've never found her to be that pretty."

_(And, of course, that's a decisive factor on whether or not to begin a relationship.)_

_(Ezri, if Jadzia believed that junk of 'pretty over personality', she would have gone with Julian instead of Worf.)_

_(And what were you thinking when you told Julian that I loved him? That was the last thing he needed to hear.)_

Ezri yawned and waved her arms in the air. "Stop, please, all of you!"

The chorus fell silent, and she continued.

"Look, it's late, I'm tired and verging on the incoherent, and all of you are starting to get really testy. Can we please call it a night and never have this discussion ever again?"

They were silent, but not because they were disagreeing with her. Rather, it was the silence Ezri considered to be 'downtime'. She smiled in the darkness and set off to deck four, where she found corridors upon corridors of empty quarters, ready to be inhabited by a sleeping body.

Ezri collapsed into bed in the suite at the center of the deck, drifting into sleep as her head hit the pillow

* * *

Damar scowled as the results scrolled on the main viewscreen, his worst fears visible in white on black.

It wasn't possible... it couldn't be... and yet it was.

Dax's plan had been brilliant in its simplicity: hide in plain sight. They had dropped out of warp behind the nebula relative to Empok Nor, using it's mass to conceal the distortions caused by the warp field. The ship had dove into the nebula, and used it's energy to hide it's own.

But their plan had a pyrric side effect.

In exchange for hiding themselves from anyone outside the nebula, the Ghriah's sensors were unable to detect anything outside the nebula. What little information that did manage come through was heavily distorted by the radiation and the grav-field of the star-seed.

Were it not for the Dominion's ansible-based communications technology, they would be completely blind and deaf to the outside universe.

But Damar needed more information than transporter logs and data streams from the news-nets could provide. No matter how he reconfigured the Ghriah's sensors, he could not manage to reduce even half of the interference. He knew he should ask Dax - with eight lifetimes of knowledge, she would certainly know something about this sort of phenomenon - but he needed to remind himself that Ezri wasn't Jadzia, and no matter what he did, she wouldn't become Jadzia.

"Bygones," he said aloud, a forced smile on his lips.

There was a solution to his problems, but it was risky. If he timed it right, he just might pull it off... 

If not, well, he was certainly doomed. No matter what Dukat might have said, Damar knew the other man would want to exact revenge for his daughter's death. If their roles had been reversed, Damar would have felt the same.

And as for Dax... 

Damar's fists clenched at his sides and he forced it from his mind. No... 

If it cost his own life to preserve hers, then so be it.

* * *

Back in her appropriated quarters, Ezri tossed and turned in bed, her sleep haunted by dreams.

_She was seated at a table in a small café, across from - a man? - a shadowy shape that seemed to suck reality into it, almost as if it were an empty hole in a puzzle..._

_The heat was indescribably unbearable, as if a heavy weight had been tied to every particle of her being. She had no idea where she was, but this intense heat was mild to the summer heat at... at..._

_She had been drinking - or was she a he? - and that might explain the confusion. But she didn't recognize the liquor. It was thick and dark and bitter. For an instant, she thought, "Benjamin might know", but who or what was a 'Benjamin'?_

_The - not a shadow, but a man - across from her had brought the strange drink with him. His features were indecipherable, but his shape had coalesced into a humanoid's._

_With a single, shadow-black finger, he slid a sheet of vellum across the table. "Here," he said. "Read this. I think you'll approve... "_

Ezri shot out of bed, her heart hammering in her chest as the door slid open and Damar stepped inside.

He looked at her, his expression solemn.

"What's wrong?" she asked, as she forced her tire limbs into a seated position.

He smiled softly, faintly, and said, "I have a plan."

She grinned at him. "So give. What is it?"

He sat down on the bed beside, and began to describe it in rather sketchy details. Ezri felt her slight ebullition dissipate like a wisp of smoke. "A probe?!" she exclaimed in spite of herself. "If Dukat detects it, we'll be dead."

"Not if we time it correctly, Dax," he corrected.

She shuddered involuntarily, and at his inquisitive gaze, explained. "Please, just don't call me that." 

"Isn't it your name?"

"My name is Ezri... or, or if that won't do, you could call me by my rank... "

He raised his eye ridges in surprise. "I hope you realize what it means to tell someone your given name."

A fragment of a memory - Jadzia's - overwhelmed her for a moment. "Jadzia, she told you her name... "

"But she was a scientist. It's not the same."

She swallowed once, and nodded, inexplicably nervous. "If it makes you feel better, you can call me 'Lieutenant'."

He nodded once, almost imperceptibly. "Very well. We can share names at a more appropriate time."

Ezri smiled, content that disaster had been averted. "We should go to the bridge, right?" she asked. "And get everything ready... "

Damar tilted his head towards the door, and followed her out.

* * *

Ezri sat at the central forward console on the Ghriah's bridge, and watched as Damar reconfigured a probe at another station. His features were bathed in the soft light from the console, and it struck her that Jadzia had been right earlier. He wasn't handsome, by any definition of the word, but he was... attractive, and looking at him made her heart warm.

_(I read somewhere,)_ Emony said, out of the blue, _(that interspecies relationships happen because, by a million-to-one genetic fluke, two people happen to find the other's pheromones 'nice smelling'.)_

_(So I married Worf because he tickled my nostrils the right way?)_ Jadzia said with a laugh.

_(That probably made you tale another look at the merchandise, and made you think "he's cute; I wonder if..")_

_What are the odds Damar will like me back?_

_(He offered to trade names with you. You should take it as a good sign.)_

_You knew him._ It was not a question.

_(Yes... but not for the same reasons you want to.)_

_What do you mean, 'same reasons I want to'?_

_(I wanted to have sex with him. You want a nice, untidy little relationship.)_

Ezri hugged herself. "Yeah... yeah, I guess you're right."

_(If you want him to like you, you should act snarky. That's how Cardassians flirt.)_

_(Oh, please!. Everyone does that! It's called playing hard to get. Say no when you mean yes. Damar, who's obviously interested in you, hasn't done anything resembling that.)_

_Maybe it's because I'm a Trill?_

Curzon just snorted.

_(He likes you. You like him. Leave it at that.)_

"I should tell him then," Ezri said as she stood up.

_(Tell him what?)_

_(Oh, no, Zee, you can't... )_

_I can and I will. He deserves to know._

She walked up behind Damar, and stopped when she was within arm's reach. She poked him, and pulled back her arm when he looked up.

"Damar?"

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"I... ah, there's something I have to tell you... " His brow furrowed, but he didn't say anything, so she continued. "You know I'm Ezri Dax, that I was once Jadzia - well, Dax was, but since I'm Dax, then, yeah, I was Jadzia - anyway, you know when she... died, they took Dax out of her and eventually but it into me. But, well, I wasn't ready, and hadn't had any training, and so when I got Dax, things didn't go as planned, so I kind of have a tendency to talk to myself." She raised her hands to quell whatever protests he might have. "I'm basically normal, except the symbiont and I have a... dialogue, instead of working in... parallel."

He looked at her, and nodded slowly. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"That's okay," she shrugged, "neither do I."

He scowled. "What?"

"It's... um... a joke."

"Oh," he said, and smiled.

Ezri felt her heart melt. She would have swooned had the symbiont's self-control not taken over at the instant. He wasn't handsome, not really, nor gorgeous in any way, but when he smiled, his feature rearranged themselves into something that would have gotten him a statue erected in his honor on Trill.

_(Now you see why I slept with him,)_ Jadzia said, with a slightly pleased tone of voice.

_(Don't worry, Ezri,)_ Tobin said, _(if you want to sleep with Damar, we can show you all about Cardassian sex.)_

_(Mmm, of course Tobin would know how to please a Cardassian properly,)_ Curzon interjected softly, _(he did know Iloja of Prim.)_

_(You should talk, Curzon,)_ Torias grumbled, _(what about all the Cardassian nubiles you've had over the years?)_

_First Joined,_ Ezri groaned. She took a few steps away from Damar, and hissed, "I don't want to sleep with him right now. And I won't if you continue like this. What if one of you says something like that out loud! I need to be able to work with the man. I can't do that if he thinks I'm a sex maniac!"

_(First Joined yourself, Ez!)_ Curzon shot back. _(Jadzia had the same problem,)_ he continued, in a lighter tone.

_(Did not.)_

He sighed. _(You Starfleet types are all so duty-oriented, you don't seem to be able to enjoy yourselves. Do you lose your sex drive when you put on that uniform?)_

"Curzon!"

Damar's head shot up, and he stared at her, a puzzled - and adorable - look on his face. "Did you say something, Lieutenant?"

"It's... it's nothing. I'm just arguing with my symbiont."

"Ah," he nodded. "Does this happen very often?"

"Constantly. Dax disagrees with everything, from how I dress myself to what I have for breakfast to what... position I take before I go to sleep."

_(Do not,)_ the chorus interrupted.

"So do you hear voices?"

She shook her head sharply. "No... well, sometimes, but, usually, when the symbiont disagrees with what I'm doing, I'll find myself doing things I wouldn't normally do. Like I'll order raktajino - which I hate, but Curzon and Jadzia drink as if it kept them alive - first thing when I come into Ops. It's really weird."

"And disconcerting, I can imagine."

"You wouldn't believe. It's worse if one of the symbiont's former hosts - Lela, Tobin, Emony, Curzon, Torias, Audrid, Joran Jadzia, and there's Verad who had Dax for about a day five years ago, he pops in sometimes too - it's worse if they disagree with me. Because they all gang up on me, or they never shut up."

"I wouldn't know."

"Actually, you might," she said after a moment. At the startled expression on his face, she continued. "You're married, right?"

He nodded.

"So you have in-laws."

He shook his head, but there was no denial behind the gestures.

"Well, imagine all of them inside your head, complaining, bickering... just being themselves and driving you insane in the process."

"So you consider yourself insane?"

She shook her head and laughed weakly. "I'm not insane. I know I'm not. I have a certificate to prove it. Besides, I can't be insane. I'm the only counselor - well, assistant counselor - on DS9." She laughed again. "'Sides, compared to them, anyone's sane."

He dipped his head and smiled again. _(Don't swoon,)_ Curzon commanded. _(If you don't want him to think you're a nymphomaniac, you shouldn't act like on!)_

"Curzon!" she hissed, flashing Damar a quick smile after the word passed her lips.

"What did Curzon want?"

"Oh, he just said that I should've rephrased that to say that compared to me, anyone's sane," she lied.

"I assume he meant that as a joke."

"Yeah, well, Curzon was dropped on his head when he was a child. He doesn't have much of a sense of humor, and what he does have isn't very funny."

_(Ezri!)_

_Gotcha!_ she thought. _That was for introducing me as you when I last saw Mother!_

_(I didn't do that!)_

_Oh, yes you did! If no Curzon, then no 'Hi, mom, it's me. Curzon.'_

"Lieutenant."

She looked up at him, her argument with Curzon forgotten. "Yes?"

"I thought you might like to know. I'm launching the probe."

Ezri strode up beside him, and looked down at his console, trying to restrain the urge to lean against him. So close to him, she understood what Emony had been talking about. She could smell him, and it was glorious.

She could hear him talking, as if at a great distance, his voice tinny and faint, but all Ezri could notice was him. His scent, his small smile, and his proximity were all that she cared about, all that seemed important to her.

_(Get ahold of yourself, girl!)_

"Whuh?"

Damar frowned. "I said, Lieutenant, that I had slaved transporter control to my console, so that I would be able to beam Dukat over here as soon as we picked him up on the probe's sensors. Weren't you listening?"

"I... no, I'm sorry. The symbiont... "

His eyes narrowed, but he seemed to accept that.

_(Ezri. I find it admirable that you care for Damar, but you shouldn't let it interfere with your duties,)_ Lela said.

_What 'duties'? This isn't my mission._

_(Oh, yes it is. You agreed to help Damar find Dukat, so it became your mission.)_

_Lela!_

_(It's the truth. Now, please stop acting like a love-struck school-girl, and offer to help the man.)_

"Damar?"

He sighed loudly, and without turning around, said, "yes, Lieutenant?"

"Is there anything I can do to help? I mean, not me me, but me Dax, because my - Dax's former hosts know lots of stuff. They've probably even done this before." _If I had any idea what you are doing._

He jerked his head at the seat beside him. "Sit down, please."

She sat and turned to face him, trying to keep the eagerness off her face, and almost succeeding.

Damar pointed at a dark screen above them. "That is the data feed from the probe."

She furrowed her brow. "I can't see anything."

"That's because the probe hasn't received the activation signal yet. Until then, it's basically as remarkable as any other piece of space debris."

"I thought the sensors couldn't pick up anything outside the nebula. How are we going to receive telemetry data from the probe, let alone send it the activation signal?"

"The same way we found out how many people were being transported off and on Empok Nor: The Dominion com network. We send a signal to the nearest transceiver platform and it will reroute it to the probe. The probe will do the reverse to send us the data."

She nodded. "Smart."

"It'll then scan for all Cardassian life signs, so I can beam then here."

"When do we start?"

"Now," he said, and jabbed at a sensitive area on his console. The once-dark screen blinked on to display the schematics of Empok Nor, with a small dot moving around the area that would have been the Promenade on DS9.

"Him?"

"Yes."

Damar manipulated the controls again, and Ezri watched him, startling herself with the intensity of the emotions he stirred within her simply at the sight of his profile bathed in the ever shifting light from the console display. It was silly, she reminded herself, to feel so... like a giddy schoolgirl, as Lela so aptly put it, about a man she barely even new.

She could feel the small, clinical part of her mind, left over from her days as a sane counsellor, begin to warm up and spit out psychobabble about recent losses and emotional bonding to anyone who would let her - and Damar certainly did. No matter what Jadzia had said, Ezri simply didn't believe her. The depth of feeling - the caring - that Damar seemed to have for her _(Dax)_ \- even to the point of trading names! - was much more than the result of a single fling.

Ezri was young, but she did have the symbiont's full store of memory available when she was willing to do a little prodding, and she had her own experience to back her up. There had been more... 

But Jadzia didn't seem willing to talk, and neither did Damar... 

Ezri sighed. Oh, well.

She looked at the display, and noticed that the dot representing Dukat was still there, moving around the Promenade.

"Damar?"

He grunted, which she took as a confirmation, and continued. "Why haven't you transported Dukat?"

He looked at her, a long-suffering expression stretched across his features. "Didn't you listen to me, Ez- Lieutenant? I said I slaved the transporters to the sensors. I don't have them working in parallel."

"... And if Dukat moves after the sensor buffer send the information to the transporters, we'll lose a goodly chunk of him," she finished, feeling slightly nauseated. "So you beam him over when he comes to a halt?"

"Actually, when he's at rest with the station."

Ezri leaned closed, until she was only centimetres from his shoulder, until she could reach out and lay her hand flat, palm down, on the back of his neck, or stroke his inner arm... 

_(That's the spirit, Ezri! You might not want us to tell you to act like a nymphomaniac, but you're more than willing to drool all over the man whenever you want to!)_

_Shut up, Curzon!_

"There!"

And suddenly, she saw a red-orange shimmer out of the corner of her eye. Ezri turned around, and watched, fear swelling through her, as Dukat and a group of Bajorans materialized on the Ghriah's bridge.

Dukat took a step forward, as Ezri and Damar rose as one. He smirked at the pair of them, the arrogance in his expression dampened by... something.

"Do you truly think we would be unaware of any and all attempts to violate the sanctity of our most holy place? You're going to be made to pay for your arrogance, Damar." He looked at Ezri but didn't seem to recognize her; for that she let out a silent sigh of relief.

But it was soon seared away only moments later. 

It enfolded as a series of images - etched in her memory for all eternity - that flashed by in quick succession

Damar pulled his weapon from its holster and took a step towards Dukat.

Dukat raised his arm, pointing a small blaster at them, and Jadzia began to scream, a low keening sound that made Ezri's knees weak with fear.

The universe was suddenly stained red... 

Then everything went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

Ezri came to in a small, dark room, lying on her side, her arms and legs manacled behind her. She held her breath for a moment, straining her ears for all sounds around her, but save for the familiar low thrum of the fusion reactor buried decks below, she was alone.

Damar was gone.

Dukat. It must be Dukat who had him.

Her head began to spin, the cell whirling around her like a centrifuge. She forced down her mounting nausea and tried to think rationally.

If she was here, alive, then surely Damar mustn't be dead. If that was all Dukat had wanted, she wouldn't be here... 

It struck her, suddenly, with the force and intensity of a blow to the head. She was utterly alone.

For the first time in nearly five months, she was utterly alone in her skull.

It was the stun shot.

Her mind raced at a near-hysterical intensity as she sought to make sense of this... unwanted miracle.

The stun must have knocked out the symbiont longer.

It wasn't what she had expected, what she had hoped for for so many months: She was alone.

No sarcastic comments, no motherly voice, no Audrid and Curzon trading recipes in the background. It was horrible. She missed Dax, and that made it all the worse. No wonder joinings were permanent. Even if they could be reversed, Ezri didn't think anyone would want to. Living with a group of mad, happy voices inside one's head for only a few days, and even the most rugged individualist would have trouble going back to being a mono-mind.

Dax would return, eventually, but until then she didn't know how to deal with it... 

_(Don't,)_ Lela said, her voice weak and low.

"Dax!" Ezri cried, hot tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. "I... I thought you were gone!"

 _(We were,)_ she replied. _(And they still are. It's just the two of us, my dear.)_

Ezri sniffled and laughed weakly. "At least there's still you."

"I was so afraid," she blurted out after a long moment, "and I don't even know why."

 _(It's all right, Ezri,)_ Lela replied. _(I understand.)_

"It's just... I felt awful when I realized I was alone... "

_(That was only for a few moments, dear, and it's over now.)_

"Thank the First Joined for that."

_(I can only imagine what it was like, for you and for our real selves after the symbiont was removed.)_

"Whuh?... Lela, what are you talking about?"

_(That's just it. I'm not Lela, not really. The real Lela Dax died centuries ago. I'm just, well, a simulacrum, if you must.)_

"Oh. I... I never realized that."

 _(Most don't,)_ Lela said.

"Where are the others?"

_(Still 'unconscious', I assume. Since we aren't all working in sync, they'll come to at they own pace.)_

Ezri nodded. "They have Damar."

_(They have you, too, and I think that's what you should be worried about. You can't help him now, but if you want to save him, you're going to have to start worrying about yourself, and not him.)_

"I... Yeah." After a moment, "do you think they can hear us?"

_(Oh, certainly. Cardassians have a voyeuristic streak a light-year wide. It's safe to assume that in his current state of mind, Dukat is perverted enough to enjoy listening to his captives moaning to themselves.)_

"I... I... Lela, what do you think they'll... they're doing to Damar?"

 _(Don't even think about him!)_ Lela commanded, her voice so intense it nearly made Ezri jump. _(You want to escape, you need to keep your hopes up. Concentrate only on yourself.)_

Hundreds of images of Damar being tortured by hoards of mad Dukats flashed through her mind, but she forced them away.

 _(Good,)_ Lela said, her tone softening. _(Now first things first, we need to free you from your bonds.)_

She began to twist her hands, curling her fingers up to touch the cuffs themselves. They were cold, metal, and slightly oversized for someone as small as she. "I think they're Cardassian standard issue. Or maybe Bajoran."

_(Those are basically the same, so it doesn't really matter. Now... )_

"Lela," Ezri asked suddenly, "how do you know stuff like that?"

_(I was a politician when I was alive, one of the first women to hold a high public office. Those were dangerous times and more than a few people threatened my life. After one of the more... extreme groups planted a bomb near my home, my advisors decide that it would be for the best if it knew how to handle myself in such situations. So I took all sorts of training courses on how to handle myself in nearly any such situation. Kidnapping was one of them.)_

"Wow. Lela, I... I had no clue!"

_(It was a... difficult part of my life. I don't enjoy talking about it.)_

"Yeah," Ezri said simply.

_(Back to business. If those are Cardassian handcuffs, you just might be able to slip your hands out, as they were intended to restrain a person much bigger than you are.)_

Ezri grinned. It was one of the few times her size would turn out to be an advantage. "There's a 'but' in there somewhere... "

Lela sighed. _(If they're Bajoran, you don't have a chance.)_

"Great. So how do I tell the difference?"

_(Run your fingers along the bracelets around your wrists. Tell me what you feel.)_

Ezri curled her hands, her tendons tightening, as her finger slid across the smooth metal of the cuffs. "Lela, they're... "

_(I know. Damn.)_

"What?"

_(They're Bajoran. I suppose it's too much to ask that you know how to pick a lock with your fingers.)_

_(Jad... Jadzia might know... )_ Torias said shakily.

"Know what?"

_(How to get out of Bajoran cuffs. She was arrested once by the Bajorans, I think.)_

_(Or Curzon,)_ said another voice, almost unrecognizable. It took Ezri a moment to realize it was Emony.

"Are you alright?" she blurted.

_(I... I've been better... )_

_(She... she isn't the only one,)_ Tobin stuttered, his soft voice almost inaudible.

 _(I'd rather not go through that again,)_ Curzon said. _(Next time someone shoots at you, Ezri, step out of the way.)_

The others chimed in their agreement, but what concerned Ezri were the three missing voices: Jadzia, Joran, and Audrid.

It was likely Audrid was still unconscious, because since she had been married to a soldier when she was alive, she had had a fair knowledge of escape tactics.

Ezri didn't care, one way or another, what had happened to Joran. The less he spoke, the better.

And as for Jadzia... 

_(I... )_ It was Jadzia, almost as if by magic, her normally calm voice unsteady.

She paused for a long moment, and then began anew. _(I... I... remember!)_

"What?"

 _(What do you remember, Jadzia?)_ Curzon said, interrupting Ezri.

_(Hard... to... talk. Easy to show.)_

The universe seemed to tear as Ezri was forced into one of Jadzia's memories.

_They were fleeing form Deep Space Nine to Bajor. She and Kira were piloting an old, old ship that made Torias' figurative knees tremble._

_Kira looked at her, as they dodged phaser fir and searched frantically for a place to land._

_"Dax," she said, "if this doesn't work, and Jaro's people manage to arrest us, there's something you need to know: Bajoran handcuffs are cheap. They're really badly mad, all you need to do is hit them - hard - against a wall or something. They'll snap open. If we get captured, I'll... "_

And the memory folded back in on itself, like a flower. 

_(This is too easy,)_ Curzon grumbled.

Ezri chewed her lower lip. "Yeah... but Jadzia is - was - much stronger than I am. That must have been why Kira suggested it to her instead of doing it herself. She might not have been strong enough to... "

 _(This was the Jaro incident?)_ Lela asked.

"I think so... Kira mentioned that word."

_(Nerys told Jadzia because she - Kira - would have been killed. This Jaro fellow was not particularly fond of Nerys.)_

_(That's putting it mildly,)_ Curzon said.

"I only wished Nerys had said how hard you had to hit the cuffs in order to break them... "

_(She... she did say hard... )_

"Yes, but for whom? Kira? Jadzia? A Klingon?"

 _(Why don't you stop talking, and try!)_ It was Joran. Awake.

"Okay, fine," Ezri said, and brought the handcuffs down onto the floor - hard - and felt rather than heard the jarring clang of metal against metal. But the handcuffs didn't break, or snap open.

Ezri gritted her teeth, ignored the dull ache in her hands, and drove then against the floor so fast she heard the air whistle.

The clang was louder this time, and her hands flared with red-hot pain. She bit her lower lip until she felt blood spurt in her mouth as she forced down a scream.

 _(Again,)_ Lela whispered.

Again Ezri drove her handcuffs against the floor, again nothing happened, and again she tried to suppress a scream. This time, the pain was too great, and she cried out for a second before clamping her mouth shut.

This... isn't working, she thought, forming the words carefully.

 _(We know,)_ Lela started, her voice testy, when a door Ezri hadn't even known was there slid open in front of her. The light nearly blinded her, but she did manage to make out a dark shape in the doorway.

Ezri's mind, in a red haze of pain, flashed back to the incident that had dragged her into this whole mess. "Damar?" she croaked feebly.

"Stop that racket!" a voice bellowed at her. It was female, and Bajoran, but so scratchy and hoarse, Ezri couldn't tell the age of it's owner. "Stop that, or I'll stun you good this time!"

Ezri blinked, her eyes adjusting to the light, but didn't speak a word. The woman came into focus. She was nearing middle age, with long, stringy red hair and rheumy green eyes. She glared at Ezri, spun around, and stalked out, the door sliding shut behind her.

 _(Not only chained and blind, but guarded as well,)_ Joran said, his voice flowing like liquid honey. _(Dukat must really fear you.)_

"There's no need to guard me. He has to have another reason."

_(Yeah. He likes to see people suffer. Like all Cardassians.)_

_(No... )_ Tobin said. _(That's... that's not true... )_

_A bar, on Vulcan for Vulcans._

_Iloja had laughed when he had seen it, and said something about how he never knew that alcoholism qualified as logical. S/he had agreed feebly and followed him inside._

_They had spent many a nights and days drinking at the Forge..._

_(I knew a good Cardassian,)_ Tobin said. _(And... and I know there are... many more. Dukat... he's just one man. You can't judge them all on his behaviour.)_

 _(How would you feel, Joran, if we held Ezri up as a shinning standard of Trill behavior?)_ Audrid asked suddenly.

"I resent being compared to him!"

_(It's an example, not a comparison. You are both, though, atypical of the standard population deviations. Dukat is, to be blunt, an utter raving, maniac; you were forcibly joined to a symbiont before you were ready.)_

_(To answer your question: No, I wouldn't mind being compared to our dear host. We are two of a kind, the pair of us.)_

"Shut up, Joran," Ezri snarled, so furious she could say nothing else.

_(Ezri, please. You aren't doing any of us any good by letting Joran upset you so. You're doing exactly what he expects. He likes getting a rise out of people.)_

_(Oh, my dear Torias! Such horrid things you say about me. I was simply answering Audrid's question. It's not my fault Ezri didn't like my response.)_

_(Yes, it is. You know damn well the pair of you have nothing in common. You've spent the past four months saying such things about her, and you feign surprise when she explodes? Really, dear Joran, I thought you were... smarter than that.)_

_(I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer, Lela.)_

_(That's because you can't, you parasite. Get back in your hole.)_

Joran didn't make a sound, but Ezri didn't feel his voice retreating from the chorus. "Oh, thank the First Joined," she said with a sigh of relief.

_(Ezri... are you... are you all right?)_

"I... I don't know. All... all I can feel are my hands throbbing... "

She closed her sore, swollen eyes and rested her cheek against the cool metal floor. She focused on the pain in her hands, that seemed to throb rhythmically, in time with her own heartbeat, radiating inwards from the surface of her skin, heating the interior of her flesh and thrumming up her bones like a message sent as drumbeats. Her joints tensed and her tendons ached.

Ezri moaned softly and choked back a sob.

The only purpose of that semi-argument was to get her angry enough so that she couldn't notice the pain... but now that she knew about it, it was like having a spider hanging above your bed: once you know it's there, there is no way of ignoring it, unless it goes away.

 _(I... Ezri, I have a plan,)_ Lela said, her voice cautious.

Ezri tried not to cry as she spoke. "The last time someone told me that, I ended up getting phasered and imprisoned."

_(I can't promise you won't get hurt, but I do believe you'll be able to free yourself from your restraints.)_

"How?"

_(Well, remember what that guard said when she stormed in here?)_

"Something about if I do it again, she'll hurt me?"

_(Stun you, actually. But that's what made me think. You won't be able to feel your hands for the next few hours... )_

"You... you can't... Lela, you don't want me to... "

_(Yes.)_

"Oh, First Joined. Lela, it didn't work the first three times... "

_(But I think I know what went wrong.)_

"What?"

_(You hit the cuffs against the floor on their **sides**.)_

"But Kira just said to thwack them against something hard. She never said where to hit them."

_(From what I understand, it's the cuff latching mechanism that's badly made. If you hit the cuff against the floor, that ought to be enough force to pop it open.)_

"It'll hurt, Lela. My hands hurt so much already... "

_(But the... )_

"The ugly guard'll stun me. I know."

_(You will be blissfully unconscious for the next few hours. During that time, your wounds will be able to heal.)_

"That's not a very long time, Lela."

_(Would you rather lie here, alone with your pain?)_

"That's not fair, Lela."

_(What's not fair about it? You have a choice: Either work toward your freedom, or lie here with your agony, waiting until Dukat comes to kill you.)_

"I... "

_(What about Damar? Don't you want to help him? I thought you couldn't wait until you exchanged given names. If you're both dead, you'll never know who he really is.)_

"Bitch."

_(You're not the first to call me that, Ezri.)_

"I... I want to help him, but I don't want to get hurt!" she sobbed.

_(It will be brief, I promise.)_

"I'll hold you to that."

_(I would expect nothing less from you.)_

* * *

Ezri began to breathe slowly, as she established a steady, constant rhythm and her heartbeat began to lower itself down to normal.

All the while, she was concentrating on her breathing, she began to slowly raise her hands. At the highest point she could reach, she twisted her arms so that her right cuff was aimed at the metal floor.

Just as slowly as she had raised them, she lowered them towards the floor, stopping before they hit the floor. She was taking no chances that any metal on metal sound would bring that huge, ugly guard running in with her phaser blazing.

She raised her arms again, forcing them up higher than before, ignoring the stilettos of pain that shot from her hands to her shoulders.

Ezri took a final, deep breath... 

And drove the handcuffs - the right cuff - against the floor with all the strength she could muster.

There was a faint snap, that she could barely hear over the ringing sound in her ears, and the right cuff popped open, just as Kira had promised.

Ezri bellowed in triumph, a Klingon war cry both Curzon and Jadzia had used in their own conquests.

The doors then slid open, just as Lela said, and the guard charged in, her massive frame blocking what little light filtered through.

"I said 'keep quiet'!" she bellowed as she pulled her weapon from her hip and pointed it at the Trill. Ezri, her blood surging with adrenaline, spat on the guard's boot.

The guard fired, and Ezri's universe spiraled into the small red dot at the end of the blaster's muzzle. Then it all when black.

***

_The Cardassian - Damar? - sat in front of her - but she was a he in this life - as she read what he had given her only moments ago_

_She could identify the language, and had a fairly good command of it. She understood the poem as she read it, but no matter how she tried, she couldn't keep that knowledge in her mind. It was as if her memory was a sieve and the poem was liquid being poured through it. It remained, but only for milliseconds._

_She looked up at the Cardassian - notDamar, but was it notDukat as well? - and saw he was smiling at her._

_"You inspired this one, old friend," he said, leaning forward. "This only became possible when I found about you. Any other person, and it becomes fantasy." He tapped the sheet of vellum. "That's what the title means. It's you."_

* * *

_... It becomes fantasy..._

* * *

_... It's you..._

* * *

She floated back to consciousness, surrounded by voices.

_(We did it.)_

_(... Yeah... )_

_(We're free.)_

_(... a bit more than we were a few hours back.)_

"We can help Damar," Ezri croaked.

 _(Of course,)_ Lela soothed.

Ezri sat, stretching her legs in front of her. While she was unconscious, someone had turned on the lights. Three parallel glowtubes ran the length of the ceiling. She held her hands up in front of her to study the damage done by her handiwork.

Her right hand had livid purple and red bruises around her wrists. She could only feel a dull, bone-deep ache, but she didn't to risk any pain by letting it touch something. Her left hand was much less bruised, and the handcuff hung on her wrists like a post-modern bracelet, the right cuff swinging limply.

On an impulse, she slid it back into place, and waited for it to slip out. But it didn't. The cuff only came out after she gave it a sharp tug.

Ezri grinned, wide and feral. "Brilliant."

_(If the guard comes in to check, she'll never be the wiser.)_

"Now that the handcuffs are off, what's step two?"

_(Untie your legs. Then get out of the cell. Then find Damar. Then get back to the Ghriah, make up a story, and go back to DS9, and hope no one noticed that you've been gone.)_

"That first thing is easy," she said as she tapped on the release button for the leg restraints.

_(Dukat forgot to put a lock code in those?)_

"I don't think Dukat had anything to do with that. He might be insane, but he's not stupid. I bet it was the guard. She doesn't strike me as being very bright."

_(Um, Ezri?)_

"Yeah?"

_(You shouldn't get so cocky. You should put the leg restraints back on, and lie down on your side. The guard might come in at any moment, and no matter what you might think, she's not stupid enough to miss something as big as that.)_

"Okay, fine," she said, as she laid back down and snapped the3 leg restraints around her ankles.

 _(How are you hands?)_ Lela asked.

"I... not bad. They still ache like hell, but it's not as bad as it was before I was stunned."

_(You see, I was right.)_

"For once."

 _(Oh, ha ha,)_ Joran snapped. _(I almost forgot to laugh.)_

_(More's the pity.)_

Ezri rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, when a scream, faint but sharps, cut through the air like a knife. She froze suddenly, her breath caught in her throat, and her heart skipped a beat. "OhFirstJoinedWhatWasThat?" she stammered.

_(I... I honestly don't know. You... you'd best not think about it. Even if it is him, there's no way you could help him from here. You don't know where he is, you don' know who's guarding him, or who's doing that to him... You can't even get out of you cell.)_

"But... I ... I have to help him!"

_(You cannot, not in you current condition.)_

"They're torturing him!"

_(Don't you think I realize that? I'm as disturbed by that thought as you are - and probably even more. I've seen friends get tortured before. All you know of torture is what you've read from books. No matter what you might imagine that they are doing to him, it's nowhere nearly as bad as what is really being done.)_

Ezri bit her lower lip as she ignored the lightness in her sinuses, the stinging at the corners of her eyes, the quavering of her jaw. "We can't just sit here and do nothing!"

_(No, Ezri, I'm afraid that's all we can do.)_

"But-"

_(-Ezri... )_

"But why?" she cried. "Why him? Why me?"

_(Oh, Ezri, I'm so sorry... )_

And that was when the door to Ezri's dark, dank cell opened to admit the guard, accompanied by another Bajoran, carrying something between them. Ezri, blinded by the light streaming in from outside the cell, couldn't see anything more than a lump being dropped on the floor.

The guards then left, and she took that opportunity to study the thing on the floor beside her.

The sight that greeted her made her heart freeze.

There, lying in a beaten, bloodied heap beside her, was Damar. He was completely naked, and covered in more cuts and bruises that Ezri thought possible to inflict to a humanoid body.

His back, buttocks, and thighs were covered in needle-thin, vertical cuts, so close together they made it look as if the skin had bee stripped completely bare. A distant, rational pat of her announced that those came from a whip, and not a very good one at that.

His chest was covered in an uneven pattern of bruising that Ezri knew came from being struck repeatedly with a small, blunt object... like a fist. This was further evidenced by what had been done to Damar's face: His left eye was swollen shut, his nose was broken, and his upper lip was split in two places.

Seeing the damage, she bit her lower lip and chastised herself for being so whiney about the pain in her hands. She couldn't image what he had suffered... Whip marks crosshatched his arms and legs, and they were also freckled with dark spots she recognized as burn marks.

So much pain, inflicted with so little... 

And then she saw something that made her lean in much closer... A thread of blood trickled down his inner thigh -one of the few areas left untouched - that didn't seem to originate from the whip marks.

She traced it up along his thigh with her finger and felt a shiver of revulsion churn her insides when she reached the source. Blood was trickling from his anus.

"Oh, First Joined, he's bleeding internally! Is... is he sick... what... what's going on... ?"

_(Oh, if only it were that simple... )_

"What?"

_(He's not sick. He was raped.)_

"Dukat... " she spat.

_(Who else?)_

"Oh, poor Damar," Ezri said as she wrapped her arms around him, trying vainly not to touch any of the bruised areas. "What can we do to help him?"

_(The best we can.)_

He opened his eyes slowly, and blinked at her, barely stirring in her arms. "Lieu... Lieutenant?"

"Ezri," she corrected gently. "I'm Ezri."

He looked at her, and blinked as realization struck. "I am Kheiel, then."

He then closed his eyes, as his body became limp in her arms and his breathing slowed slightly.

"Da - Kheiel?"

 _(Ezri! Let him sleep!)_ Lela hissed. _(He needs it as much - if not more - than you did earlier.)_

Ezri traced the ridges that trailed down Damar's shoulders, carefully laid him on his right side on the floor. She scooted away, and sat, staring at the broad expanse of his back, the open welts glistening in the glowtubes' light.

She then shuddered, suddenly and violently, and turned away in disgust.

 _(It's only normal,)_ Audrid soothed.

"What? The fact that I'm fascinated by another man's pain? That's normal?!"

_(Most humanoids are instinctively drawn to the macabre, to death. It is the one thing all races have in common. Ultimately, death is the one foe you cannot beat. 'Researching' the enemy is only normal... )_

"Like an oek'he flying straight into an open flame?"

_(Not... exactly. An oek'he dies inside that flame; you will not die staring at Damar's injuries.)_

"It's... it's just... it's so horrible."

_(The simple fact that you realize this is a great comfort to me. If you were not horrified by what had been done to Damar... )_

"Oh, stop moralizing, Curzon!"

_(You shouldn't have given me such a good opening, dear.)_

"Shut up."

Ezri peeled off her jacket, balled it under Damar, and then carefully eased him onto his back, so that he might lay on something other than the cold, hard floor.

"Why isn't she bleeding?" she asked suddenly. The whip welts still hadn't scabbed over, and they were 'dry'. In fact, the only blood flowing on his body was the thin trickle from his anus, and even that had begun to dry. Considering the wounds that Dukat had inflicted upon him, Damar should have been slick with his own blood. It... it was almost as if... 

Ezri was nearly sick at the very thought.

It was as if someone had carefully and lovingly wiped the blood from Damar's body. She forced down her mounting nausea. What... What kind of perversion could have driven that monster to clean Damar's wounds but not to heal them. And at that, her resolve strengthened. She was now even more determined to escape before Dukat had a chance to hurt her... or to hurt Damar once again.

He will die, a small, rational voice inside of her said. It was the voice of her training, the voice of the woman she had wanted to be before she had been joined. If Dukat tortures Damar again, he will die.

She glanced involuntarily around the room, and then back at Damar. "I can't just sit here and do nothing!" she shouted.

_(Ezri. Someday, you're going to have to learn that patience is a virtue.)_

"I... Yeah, I guess. But sometime it's difficult to accept that the only thing I can do is just sit back and wait. I'm so used to... rushing in and doing stuff. It's what I learnt at the academy and at home.

Lela gave her the symbiotic equivalent of a shrug. _(In this case, dear, you don't have to sit back and wait. You can go to sleep. In fact, I'd rather recommend it.)_

"Lela, I've been unconscious twice. I don't need to sleep."

_(Being stunned into unconsciousness isn't the same as a good night's rest. When you're asleep, your body recharges. When you're unconscious... well, you're unconscious. I'm not a doctor, but I know it's not the same.)_

_(You're scared, nervous, and can barely string together a coherent thought.)_

_(Just lie down beside Damar, Zee, if you don't want to sleep.)_

"Why?"

_(He needs to be kept warm.)_

"He's a reptiloid; I thought they slept when they were cold."

_(But you're not a biologist, are you?)_

"You don't know anything, Curzon."

_(I know more than you do.)_

"Shut up."

_(Did you hear yourself, Ezri? You need to sleep.)_

"Fine."

She kicked off the leg restraints and laid down on the floor beside Damar. Since anyone who saw her curled up beside next to him would know she had escaped her bonds, it was no longer necessary to keep up the charade.

Ezri snuggled into the crook between arm and abdomen, her head on his chest and her arm stretched across his belly.

Moments later - as Lela had silently predicted - she was sound asleep.

* * *

Moments - or hours - later, in a dreamstate where the perception of time was but a finely crafted illusion, Damar's arm snaked around Ezri, almost as if by its own accord and cradles her tightly against his body.

* * *

Ezri's sleep was not so peaceful

_"It's you, Tobin my friend. The title, the sil'scin, it's you."_

_It was an era before translators, before people did not need to learn a language other than their own. Tobin's command of Kardasi was excellent - for an off-worlder. The nuances, the subtle thing, were beyond his comprehension._

_"Iloja, that last word... What is a 'sil'scin'... "_

* * *

_... What is 'sil'scin..._

* * *

"Sil'scin!" she gasped, awakening with the word on her lips.

Damar brushed a sweaty lock of hair from her forehead and stared at her, his eyes wide, blue, and full of concern. They rose, almost as one, to a seated position, and she collapsed against him, her breath hot heavy, and labored. "A nightmare," she said, as an answer to his unasked question. "Oh, First Joined, a nightmare!" She recalled none of it, save for an overwhelming dread, but it was all she could think to say.

His brow furrowed. "What ever it was, you were thrashing around rather animatedly." A pause, that seemed to draw out like a knife. "Ezri, I didn't know you could speak Kardasi?"

"I... I can't. Was I speaking aloud?"

"Yes. You were having a conversation with a man named Iloja about, well, a poem, I believe."

"A poem! That's what it was."

"What was?"

She traced her fingers along his jawline. "My... my dream. I was on Vulcan, with Iloja of Prim. Well, not me, but Dax. Tobin," she amended, touching her belly with a single fingertip. "He was telling me about a poem he had just written called 'Sil'scin', and he was just getting around to explaining what the title meant when it just... stopped. Tobin probably forgot the rest of the conversation." She laughed. "I have so many memory fragments floating around in my own head, it's sometimes a wonder I can remember my own name. And there are times when I can't."

"I remember that poem. I had to write an essay on it when I was twelve."

"What does it mean?"

"What?"

"Sil'scin."

"The poem, or the word?"

"Both, please."

He sighed. "Well, the poem was about a woman who was murdered in a most vicious manner. Somehow - it isn't really specified -she's reborn as a teenager, barely into puberty. She - he - then tracks down the murderer and strangles him with his own hair. Quite brutal, even for Prim."

"I know. I warned him about that. I think it might have been Vulcan that did it to him, though. The land and the sky were always as red as blood."

"Interesting. Well, sil'scin - the word - is very, very old, before Kardasi came into existence. I think it might actually be Khetani, or even late Hebitian. Translated literally, it meant 'Hand of the Gods'. It designates the ones that are handpicked to exact divine judgement. It is said that they are the victims of crimes, their souls reborn into adult hosts, forced by fate to confront their killer though a series of great coincidences."

"That's what he meant!"

"Ezri, what are you talking about?"

"Kheiel, I am a sil'scin. I am the adult reincarnation of Jadzia Dax, meant to exact vengeance against the one who slaughtered her in cold blood." She looked up at him, eyes wide and hopeful. "Would Dukat believe this?"

"I... I'm not sure. He's changed, that at least is obvious, but I'm not certain it has made him superstitious... "

"We can at least try."

"I'm not arguing that. He'll surely listen, as it is quite an original argument, but as to whether he would believe it... "

"Would you?"

"Perhaps, but I am more susp - superstitious than Dukat. His people abandoned their beliefs when the state declared itself atheist. My people never quite got around to it."

"I heard of that." She paused, as she went over the last snippet of conversation in her mind. "Kheiel, what did you mean when you said he'd changed?"

"He's quite mad, that I'm sure of. He... he hears things that aren't there. He thinks they're gods, descended from above."

He winced suddenly, his face distorted in a mask of pain. Ezri stared up at him, mouth agape, and pulled way when she realized it was she who was causing him such pain. She had touched his wounds, and while he had been able to ignore the pain for a short time, he had his limits. And he had reached them.

Ezri licked her lips, her mouth dry. "Lay down," Ezri muttered as she helped him to the floor.

 _(He'll be all right,)_ Curzon reassured. _(I promise you.)_

"He was tortured!" she cried. "How can he be all right?"

_(Superficial damage, only. I went through much worse when I was alive, and I survived.)_

Well, what he went through wasn't playtime with Klingons. Dukat raped him. Dukat whipped him... 

_(What makes you think it was Dukat?)_

_(Yeah, he could have had one of his Bajoran flunkies do it for him. He wouldn't want to get his hands dirty with something like this.)_

"Yes, he would."

_(What are you talking about, of course he-)_

"He would. This is personal."

_(Damar did kill Ziyal, Torias.)_

_(I still think you're wrong. He's too aristocratic to dirty his hands with something like this.)_

_(He's not.)_

"Not what?"

_(Dukat isn't an aristocrat.)_

"How'd you know?"

_(Cardassian aristocratic names are longer. Besides, 'dukacha', the word it derives from, means 'courtesan'.)_

Despite herself, despite the situation, despite everything, Ezri collapsed on the floor beside Damar and began to laugh hysterically.

Damar was watching her, a quizzical look in his eyes. "Are you all right, Ezri?" 

"No. No, I'm not," she aid, sobering. "You just sleep. Let me worry, Kheiel."

* * *

Exactly six hours after the two guards had dragged Damar back to the cell, they returned.

Ezri had spent much of that time trying to think of a plan of escape. Her own combadge had been taken from her when she had fist been captured, and she didn't see how she could steal one from the guards. No matter how skilled Tobin was at sleight of hand, she doubted he could show her how to lift anything from the Bajorans.

There was a small grate set in the far corner of the ceiling, but it was far too narrow, even for Ezri.

"We're trapped," she said glumly.

 _(Yes, but-)_ Curzon had begun before he was interrupted when the doors grunted open and two Bajorans stormed into the room, heading for Damar. She knew why they were here.

She knew where they would take him. 

She knew what would be done to him there.

And after that, she knew he would die.

Ezri sat up and faced them, with a cold, steely glare Curzon had perfected when dealing with Klingons - and other stubborn species - so many years ago.

Both guards shot her derisive glances, did not slow down, did not stop, but kept walking towards Kheiel as if following a divine path. Anger and fury mounting in her like the inexorable path of molten magma in a volcano, she leapt to her feet, and with long, shaky strides, stepped between the guards and Kheiel.

"No!" she snarled, and this time, they did stop.

But it was only to exchange glances before starting anew.

"No," she repeated. "You can't have him. You won't. You'll have to kill me first."

The two guards laughed and the redhead built like a mountain said, "won't be hard. You're a little frail."

"I once killed a man with my bare hands. If you come closer, I'll kill the both of you, as well." Ezri would not be able to, but Dax had no such objections. The symbiont had spent many years, in most of her hosts, learning various methods of self-defense that were as quick and as bloodless as possible. In the five months that Ezri had been joined with Dax, she had spent many hours acquainting herself with those skill, and for the first time they would prove useful.

The guards looked at each other, at her, and then left.

Ezri watched them leave, and collapsed to the floor beside Damar.

_(Oh, my dear, that was so brave of you!)_

"Th-thanks Audrid."

_(It was brave and very smart as well. I can think of no better way to get Dukat's attention.)_

_Huh?_

_(Those guards have certainly gone off to consult a higher authority than themselves, obviously Dukat, since it was he who tortured Dukat. There are two possibilities: the guards will return, toss you aside, and drag Damar off to be killed..._

_(Or you will be brought to Dukat to explain your behavior.)_

_Surely there are more possibilities than that!_

_(Oh, yes, but those are the most probable, the second even more than the first.)_

_Why?_

Audrid gave a small smile - or Ezri thought she did - and continued. _(Dukat's a Cardassian, and they are more curious than a little baby exploring the world for the first time. He doesn't know you, he doesn't know how you know Damar, and his curiosity would kill him if he didn't bother finding out.)_

_(You sound sure of yourself.)_

_(You don't know any Cardassians, Audrid, so how-)_

_(Tobin knew Iloja. Curzon had dozens of Cardassian mistresses. Jadzia slept with Damar, among others. They understood the Cardassian mindset, and because they knew it, so did I.)_

_(I'll buy that.)_

_(Audrid?)_

_(Yes?)_

_(I thought Damar said Dukat was insane; why do you expect him to behave in any manner that might be considered 'normal'? He might even have Ezri tortured, just for kicks.)_

_(Torias. Insane doesn't always mean stupid. Take Joran for instance.)_

_(What about me?)_

"You're brilliant," Ezri said with a low groan, her throat dry. "But you're completely nuts. That's what she was going to say."

_(Hrrmph)_

_(Shh! I hear som-)_

The cell doors slid open again and the behemoth female Bajoran stepped in. "Come," she said to Ezri, gesturing her weapon at the corridor.

* * *

A few minutes' walk down dark, identical corridors, walking, walking, walking, until Ezri no longer knew where she had been, the guard came to a halt in front of a set of doors. Ezri knew, at that moment, tha5t she was being brought before Dukat. To talk or to be tortured, she knew not. Nor did she care.

The doors slid open silently, and Ezri strode in without even a glance at the guard. For a moment, she thought she was in the wrong room. These were living quarters.

She glanced around for a moment, and then she saw him. Dukat was kneeling in front of an altar, his hands upturned in prayer, and his form bathed in gentle starlight. 

'Monster, monster, monster' was all he mind cried at her, and even if she had never been joined to Dax, she would have known it just as well, for his exploits were nearly legend within the Federation. And yet... 

And yet, he seemed so at peace, kneeling there. There was a serenity about him that even the symbiont could only dream of.

'He killed Jadzia,' something snarled inside of her.

I know, she replied, and took a step towards him. "Dukat."

He looked up. "Ah, hello. I was looking forward to speaking to you, but I never expected it to be so soon. You see, Yuna,"

_Yuna?_

"Damar wasn't very forthcoming when it came to you. In fact, he was rather closed-mouthed, and much more than usual. So, tell me. Why are you here?"

"I was captured," she snarled. "By you."

Dukat laughed softly. Hands clasped behind his back, he strolled towards her. "I don't blame you for your bitterness, but I do hope you can understand that I only did what I did to protect my people. You and Damar were a threat, a threat that had to be dealt with."

"is that why you tortured him, then? I fail to see how a freighter can be much of a threat to a space station. Or was it for a more personal reason, Dukat? Why don't you just admit that you did it for Ziyal."

"Now how did you - No. It wasn't for Ziyal at all. There is no way I could honor her memory properly if I tortured a man in her name. Besides, I've forgiven Damar for that a long time ago. He only did it because he had to, and I understand that now."

"Then why?" 

He looked at her strangely, as if she were a slow child, unable to grasp a simple concept. "For the reasons I told you when I took the two of you hostage: you invaded a holy place, and for that you must be punished."

"I don't get that - what do you mean, holy place? Empok Nor is just an abandoned space station."

"Ah, but it is much more than that now. This," he motioned at the walls, obviously meaning to encompass the entire station, "is the first place where we will not be persecuted for our beliefs... "

_What? Your sex addiction?_

_(Ezri. Let him talk.)_

"It is the first place we have been able to come together as a community. You see, Yuna, how can there be anywhere more holy than this?"

_Symbiont pools on Trill?_

But do as Lela said: let him talk. "No. No, I can't," she said meekly.

"But we aren't here to discuss that, now are we? Tell me, Yuna, who are you? What were you and Dukat doing lurking in that nebula?"

She saw no deception in his features, only simple curiosity. He believed what he was saying. But that meant... 

Damar told him nothing!

_(Did you expect anything less? He's very strong.)_

_But Dukat must have worked on him for hours..._

_(We don't know that. Don't jump to conclusions; it's bad for your logic.)_

_Yes, mother._

"Yuna? I'm waiting."

"I'm sorry. I was just gathering my thoughts."

"Now. Let's star from the beginning, then, Yuna - "

"I'm not Yuna."

"I beg your pardon?"

"My name is not Yuna. Damar lied to you."

Dukat let out a sharp laugh, and stepped closer. "What are you talking about?"

"He lied to you. You whipped him, you burned him, you beat him, you raped him. He didn't break. He lied to you."

"That's impossible!"

"Is it?"

_(Careful, Zee.)_

_I'll try._

"He couldn't have lied, even if he wanted to!"

"Oh, really? Well, how do you explain this? My name is not Yuna. Never was. Never will be. I'm Ezri Ti - Ezri Dax."

Dukat's eyes widened, and he paled slightly, but Ezri still pressed on. "Damar brought me here to exact justice upon you, and I'll tell you why.

"You recognized my name, I know you did; I saw the look in your eyes. I was there when you killed her. I was there, because I was her!"

"What?"

"I was Jadzia Dax. And I still am Jadzia."

"Then... then, you must be... "

"I am the sil'scin of Jadzia Dax, here to avenge her death." She began to scan the room unobtrusively, searching for something she might use as a weapon.

"You can't kill me!"

"You should have thought of that before you slaughtered me."

"You're not Dax," he said suddenly.

"Yes, I am. I remember one of the last things I saw before I died was you, bending over and saying that you never intended me any harm."

"How will you kill me, then?" he snarled defiantly.

"Whoever said I would kill you now. And don't think of it, Dukat," she said, at the look in his eyes. "If you kill me, you'll just have two people haunting you... "

There! Lying casually on a table was a simply knife beside a plate. She took the few steps that separated her from it and wrapped her fingers around the hilt.

While he was distracted... five paces separated them... 

Curzon whispered 'there', and she buried the knife in his chest. Dukat collapsed to the floor, screaming and clawing at her.

"Stop that," she said, and slapped him.

The doors then slid open, and the guards charged in, their weapons drawn. It took them only a moment to absorb the scene and realize what had happened. "You killed him!" the redhead screamed.

Ezri looked up at her and calmly said, "No. He's not dead. He might be, if the inclination strikes. At the moment, the blade is in his lungs. It hurts, but it's not life threatening. But if I put any weight on it is this direction, like, say, you phaser me and I fall on it, it'll tear open his heart, and then he will die."

"Do... do as she says," Dukat gurgled.

"Now give me your phasers. We're going to let my friend out. A trade, if you will. Dukat for Damar."

* * *

It was only a short walk form Dukat's quarters to the cell, to the transporter. Ezri, Damar, and Dukat were beamed to the Ghriah's bridge. 

There, Ezri plotted a course outside the station's weapons range. Once far enough from Empok Nor, she beamed Dukat back.

* * *

Damar returned from sick bay, his wounds healed, to find Ezri sitting on the floor by the captain's chair, her head buried in her hands.

"What's wrong?"

She looked up, startled, and wiped at her eyes. "I'm sorry... this is all my fault. We were supposed to capture Dukat, but we didn't and you got tortured instead."

He sat down beside her and stroked her hair. "No. If it hadn't been for you, I'd be dead."

"That's what they say, too. But I just don't... "

He then silenced her the only way he could think of: he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. Her lips were as soft as she was, and just as sweet.

She tightened her arms around his neck and opened her mouth. It was like a breath of arctic air. He slipped in his tongue, revelling in her exotic taste.

Damar broke contact.

"Here?"

"Yes."

Only moments and they were both down to skin. 

He smiled, and kissed her again. Her arms around his neck, she pulled him to the floor.

* * *

Hours later, they laid entwined in each other's limbs, their bodies slick with sweat, watching the stars streak by on the viewscreen.

"What about Weyoun?"

"What about him? This is none of his concern."

"Those kids he was going to... "

"I can handle him. One of the wonderful things about clones is that they don't remember what the last one did without a particular implant from their predecessor's brain. A... transporter accident should take care of it."

She laughed, and kissed his chest.

_(You do realize, this is you last time.)_

_I know, Jadzia, I know, Ezri replied, suddenly melancholic. I wish it weren't. I... I just wish this could go on forever. This moment._

_(It'll fade. It'll hurt for a very long time, but it will fade.)_

_Yes. I know that too._

_(But enjoy the time you have together. Seize the day, as Curzon always says. Love him, cherish him, but do understand that after this night, you can never see him again.)_

_Not like this._

_(No. Too risky.)_

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him once again. His hands trailed down her, brushing her spots, and he pulled her towards him


End file.
